Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Teacher Guide
Book List: General Children’s Literature
Perseverance
Abel’s Island – William Steig IL: 3-6 RL: 5.5
Cast away on an uninhabited island, Abel, a very civilized mouse, finds his resourcefulness and endurance tested to the limit as he struggles to survive and return to his home.
The Alfred Summer – Jan Slepian IL: 5-8 RL: 6.1
Four preteen outcasts, two of them with disabilities, learn lessons in courage and perseverance when they join forces to build a boat.
Airmail to the Moon – Tom Birdseye IL: K-3 RL: 3.9
When the tooth that she was saving for the tooth fairy disappears, Ora Mae sets out to find the thief and send him “airmail to the moon!”
Brave Irene – William Steig IL: K-3 RL: 3.5
Plucky Irene, a dressmaker’s daughter, braves a fierce snowstorm to deliver a new gown to the duchess in time for the ball.
Breaking Through – Francisco Jimenez IL: 5-8, YA RL: 7.4
Having come from Mexico to California 10 years earlier, 14-year-old Francisco is still working in the fields but fighting to improve his life and complete his education.
Carrot Seed – Ruth Krauss IL: K-3 RL: 2.2
Everyone tells a small boy that the carrot seed he has planted will never grow, but his patience is rewarded.
The Circuit – Francisco Jimenez IL: 5-8, YA RL: 5.5
This story explores a migrant family’s experiences moving through labor camps, facing poverty and impermanence, and discusses how they endure through faith, hope, and back-breaking work.
Eleanor – Barbara Cooney IL: K-3 RL: 4.2
Presents the difficult childhood of Eleanor Roosevelt, who suffered the loss of both parents and had to overcome shyness and loneliness.
The Goats – Brock Cole IL: 5-8, YA RL: 5.8
Stripped and marooned on a small island by their fellow campers, a boy and a girl form an uneasy bond that grows into a deep friendship when they decide to run away and disappear without a trace
Goin’ Someplace Special – Patricia Mckissack IL: K-3 RL: 4.2
In segregated 1950s Nashville, a young African-American girl braves a series of indignities and obstacles to get to one of the few integrated places in town: the public library.
Island of the Blue Dolphins – Scott O’Dell IL: 5-8 RL: 5.5
Left alone on a beautiful but isolated island off the coast of California, a young Indian girl spends 18 years not only merely surviving through her enormous courage and self-reliance, but finding a measure of happiness in her solitary life.
Julie of the Wolves – Jean Craighead George IL: 5-8 RL: 5.6
While running away from home and an unwanted marriage, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost on the North Slope of Alaska and is befriended by a wolf pack.
A New Coat for Anna – Harriet Ziefert IL: K-3 RL: 2.0
Even though there is no money, Anna’s mother finds a way to make Anna a badly needed winter coat.
Out of the Dust – Karen Hesse IL: 3-6 RL: 4.5
Fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family’s wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Great Depression.
Ruby Holler – Sharon Creech IL: 3-6 RL: 6.0
Thirteen-year-old fraternal twins Dallas and Florida have grown up in a terrible orphanage but their lives change forever when an eccentric but sweet older couple invites them on an adventure, beginning in an almost magical place called Ruby Holler.
The Strength of Saints – A. LaFaye IL: 3-6 RL: 5.0
In 1936, 14-year-old Nissa takes a stand against racial prejudice and for her own integrity and independence, drawing on the support of her individualistic mother, her father, stepmother, and some of the inhabitants of their Louisiana town.
Stone Fox – John Reynolds Gardiner IL: 3-6 RL: 4.7
Little Willie hopes to pay the back taxes on his grandfather’s farm with the purse from a dog sled race he enters.
The Tale of Despereaux – Kate DiCamillo IL: 3-6 RL: 4.1
This story relates adventures of Despereaux Tilling, a small mouse of unusual talents, the princess that he loves, the servant girl who longs to be a princess, and a devious rat determined to bring them all to ruin.
Trouble Don’t Last – Shelley Pearsall IL: 5-8 RL: 5.2
Samuel, an 11-year-old Kentucky slave, and Harrison, the elderly slave who helped raise him, attempt to escape to Canada via the Underground Railroad.
When My Name Was Keoko – Linda Sue Park IL: 5-8, YA RL: 5.7
With national pride and occasional fear, a brother and sister face the increasingly oppressive occupation of Korea by Japan during World War II, which threatens to suppress Korean culture entirely.
Next: Book List – General Children’s Literature – Proactivity
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